Mastodon The Mastodon was a relative of the prehistoric Mammoth, although similar in appearance there was a numerous amount of difference between the two. Appearance The mammoth and mastodon are often misconceived to be much larger than what they really are. They are, in fact, very similar in size to the modern day Asian elephant, which grows up to 3 meters high at the shoulder. The coat of a mammoth was similar to that of musk oxen, growing up to 90 centimeters in length. Other physical characteristics of the mammoth included a high-peaked forehead, and a high hump that resulted from their long spines and neck vertebrae and possibly accentuated by fat deposits and thick hair. They had a shorter trunk than the modern day Asian or African elephants that we are used to seeing today. The Mammoth and The Mastodon There is a number of different Mammoth and Mastodon species that diverged from the Asian elephant after the latter group split from the African elephant. They are all mammals and belong to a species called Proboscideans. From the Mastodon two Asian and African elephants evolved.

Probably the most recognized/symbolic species of the four would be the woolly mammoth, or mammuthus primigenius, this is because of their broad geographic distribution, adaptation to cold environments, and relative abundance during the last ice age. The mastodon roamed the open spruce woodlands, usually in areas such as valleys and swamps. They inhabited almost all the world living in every continent except for Antarctica and Australia. The oldest known mastodon fossil is about twenty-eight millions years old and are they are thought to have gone extinct eight thousand years ago. Many types of mammoths lived in northern climates, and their remains can be found in most northern regions of the world including: Europe, Northern Asia and North America. The oldest known mammoth fossil is four million years old and it is believed that the mammoths migrated to North America one and a half million years ago. The last mammoth species was a dwarf species and went extinct around 2000 b.c.; it lived near the coast of Siberia. Mammoth vs. Mastodon Tusk The Mammoth tusk is curved and can be almost long as the mammoth is tall. The tusks could reach lengths up to 4.2 meters.

The Mastodon tusk was much shorter than the mammoth tusk at 2.5 meters in length. Grazer vs. Browser Mammoth Jaw and Teeth Complete Mastodon Molar Comparison The mastodon had the same number of teeth as the mammoth did throughout their lifetimes, but the mastodons had more teeth in their jaw at any one time. Their teeth could get five inches in diameter and two and half inches thick. The mastodons had simple and low crowned teeth showing that the animal had a tendency to eat softer vegetation such as twigs and leaves. Their teeth are very distinctive. They're coated with enamel and have 6-8 cone-shaped cusps and are similar to that of a pigï¿½s molar. The roots of their teeth can be in singular form or can be attached to themselves. The mammothï¿½s teeth are typical for a grazer, an herbivore. Their teeth could get up to eight inches tall and twelve inches wide. The tall plates of the tooth act as grinding stones and the mammoths would probably chew grass the same way a cow would. Mammoth teeth grew similar to the process of a conveyor belt.

Once a set of teeth was being completely worn down, a new set would be ready to grow in its place. This process would take place six times in a mammothï¿½s lifetime. In the final set, when the teeth wore down, the mammoth would slowly starve to death. The Size Difference The American mastodon was estimated to weigh between four and six tons. They stood 2-3 meters tall which is about 6-9 feet at the shoulder and their bodies 5 meters long. The Wooly Mammoth also weighed between four and six tons, but the Columbian Mammoth weighed between eight and ten tons.

Mammoth Time Line 3-4 million years ago: Mammoths appear in sub-Saharan Africa 1.7 million years ago: Mammoths cross the land bridge that linked Siberia and Alaska 13,000 - 10,000 BC: The Earth's climate changes and ice sheets gradually diminish 10,000 - 9,000 BC: Mammoths start to die out in Europe and Asia 8,000 BC: Full-size mammoths become extinct in Siberia and the Americas 2,000 BC: The last mammoths, a dwarf species found on an island off the coast of Siberia, die out. Three species of mammoth are known to have been present in Europe and Siberia. The most primitive mammoth was the ancestral or early mammoth, which lived in Europe between about 2.5 million and 700,000 years ago. This was followed by the steppe mammoth, which lived until about 200,000 years ago, then the woolly mammoth, which finally died out about 3,500 years ago.

References Mammoths and Mastodons: All American Monsters | Science | Smithsonian Contact Privacy Policy Terms of Use Mammoths and Mastodons: All American Monsters A mammoth discovery in 1705 sparked a fossil craze and gave the young United States a symbol of national might Columbian mammoths were larger than mastodons. Both once roamed North America. (Velizar Simeonovski / The Field Museum, Chicago) Smithsonian Magazine | Subscribe April 2010 In the blue shadows after dawn, the low hills in this stretch of South Dakota can look like a line of elephants trudging toward some distant water hole. It’s a geologic echo of the great herds of Col­umbian mammoths that used to wander here. They were like African elephants, only bigger. “A full-grown adult weighed ten tons. That’s as much as a school bus,” a guide tells the tourists on a sidewalk at the Mammoth Site, a paleontological dig and museum in the town of Hot Springs. She points out a set of brick-size teeth with corrugated surfaces like the soles of running shoes.

With them, a mammoth ate 400 pounds of grasses and sedges a day. From This Story Columbian mammoths were larger than mastodons. (Velizar Simeonovski / The Field Museum, Chicago) Both Columbian mammoths and mastodons once roamed North America. (Velizar Simeonovski / The Field Museum, Chicago) The Mammoth Site in Hot Springs, South Dakota, preserves the fossilized remains of Columbian mammoths at the place where warm waters and foliage lured them to their deaths 26,000 years ago. (Blake Gordon / Aurora Select) Paleontologist Larry Agenbroad discovered the mammoth site 35 years ago. (Mammoth Site of Hot Springs, SD) Volunteer Ruth Clemmer exposes a bone, part of an effort to add to the 58 specimens that have been brought to light. (Blake Gordon / Aurora Select) Altogether, parts of 58 mammoths lie exposed in an area about the size of a hockey rink, sheltered beneath a roof built to protect them. Agenbroad figures at least as many remain hidden underground.

(Blake Gordon / Aurora Select) Colombian mammoths predominated in the open grasslands of the West, mastodons in the forests of the East. The map shows sites where the two animals' fossilized remains have been found. (Guilbert Gates) The French anatomist Georges Cuvier coined "mastodon" from the Greek words for "breast" and "tooth." (Bettmann / Corbis) The conical ridges on the tooth in question were for grinding branches—not flesh, as had been believed. (Thomas Jefferson Fossil Collection / Academy of Natural Sciences) The mammoth's tooth was better than the mastodon's for eating grasses. (Albert Copley / Visuals Unlimited) The idea of an "animal of uncommon magnitude" led the artist Charles Willson Peale to lead a dig in the Hudson River Valley—and to paint the proceedings. (The Granger Collection, New York) Peale added a few mastodon bones to a pile previously found at the site, but when he showed the skeleton at his Philadelphia museum, he mistakenly pointed the tusks downward. (© Mary Evans Picture Library) A 13-foot-tall mammoth skeleton lives at the University of Nebraska.

(Peter Menzel / Photo Researchers) France's Comte de Buffon and Thomas Jefferson argued over which continent's wildlife was bigger. (North Wind Picture Archives) The 15-foot-tall giant short-faced bear America figured into the argument over which continent had the larger wildlife. (Joe Venus / By the 1780s, Jefferson convinced himself that the mammoth still lived. When, as president, he sent Lewis and Clark to explore the American West–it was partly to see if they could turn up a living mammoth. (The Granger Collection, New York) A trapped mammoth struggles to exit a pit. (Mark Hallett Paleoart / Photo Researchers) Photo Gallery Directly below the sidewalk, a volunteer scratches up dirt in a niche formed largely by the bones of dead mammoths. She’s got a big shoulder blade sticking up out of the ground off her knees, the round end of a leg bone at her right elbow, ribs like stripes painted in the dirt wall just above, and behind her a sort of cascade of half-excavated skulls and tusks spilling down to the bottom of the dig.

Altogether, parts of 58 mammoths lie exposed in an area about the size of a hockey rink, sheltered beneath a roof built to protect them. Larry Agenbroad, the paleontologist who helped discover this site 35 years ago, figures at least as many remain hidden underground. This is one of the world’s largest sites that display the bones where mammoths died, and it has some of the horror and fascination of a slow-motion traffic pileup. About 26,000 years ago, Agenbroad says, a sinkhole formed here and filled with water from a hot spring, creating a vegetated oasis that lured many young mammoths to their death. In places, the bones have settled in the posture of the animal’s desperate struggle to get back up the slick, steep sides of the pond, a foreleg flung up, the back legs splayed out where they pawed for traction in the mud below. Occasionally a visitor will imagine the fear and trumpeting of the struggling animal and start to weep. The guides, volunteers and paleontologists at the Mammoth Site are a bit more jaded.

They’ve nicknamed one disarticulated skeleton Napoleon Bone-Apart. Another specimen, found minus its skull, started out as Marie Antoinette, after the guillotined French queen. It turned out to be a male, like all the other mammoths in this site. “So we renamed it Murray,” says Agenbroad, a soft-spoken, neighborly figure with bright, deep-set eyes behind rimless glasses. It’s a venerable American tradition, this mix of science, show business and big hairy pachyderms. The same happy combination drives a new exhibition, “Mammoths and Mastodons: Titans of the Ice Age,” which just opened at Chicago’s Field Museum (and travels to Jersey City, Anchorage, St. Louis, Boston, Denver and San Diego). With Agenbroad as a consultant, one part of the exhibition aims to evoke the world of the mammoths in the South Dakota hills. Other parts explore the profound influence these creatures had in human history. Though dinosaurs now come to mind when we think about lost worlds, mammoths and mastodons provided the first persuasive evidence that one of God’s creatures could go extinct.

(The idea had previously bordered on heresy, but we now know that the animals vanished mysteriously roughly 11,000 years ago.) And though we often associate them with Siberia, mammoths and mastodons played a huge role in establishing our national identity, as Americans struggled to climb out from under the shadow of Europe. It started with a five-pound tooth. In the summer of 1705, in the Hudson River Valley village of Claverack, New York, a tooth the size of a man’s fist surfaced on a steep bluff, rolled downhill and landed at the feet of a Dutch tenant farmer, who promptly traded it to a local politician for a glass of rum. The politician made the tooth a gift to Lord Cornbury, then the eccentric governor of New York. (Cornbury liked to cross-dress as his cousin Queen Anne, or so his enemies said.) Cornbury sent the tooth to London labeled “tooth of a Giant,” after the statement in Genesis that “there were giants in the earth” in the days before the Flood. Man or beast, this “monstrous creature,” as Cornbury called it, would soon become celebrated as the “incognitum,” the unknown species.

The discovery of dinosaurs was more than a century in the future, but in terms of this creature’s grip on the popular imagination, it was “the dinosaur of the early American republic,” according to Paul Semonin, author of American Monster , a history of the incognitum. Some primal force in the American spirit embraced it, he says, as “in effect, the nation’s first prehistoric monster.” Based on the size of bones discovered near the tooth, the Massachusetts poet Edward Taylor estimated the incognitum’s height at 60 or 70 feet (10 would have been closer to the mark) and wrote bad poetry about “Ribbs like Rafters” and arms “like limbs of trees.” The minister Cotton Mather boasted that the New World possessed biblical giants to make the Old World’s “Og and GOLIATH, and all the Sons of Anak” look like pygmies. When similar teeth later turned up in South Carolina, slaves pointed out that they looked a lot like an African elephant’s. Early explorers also brought back whole tusks and bones from the Ohio River Valley.

Americans soon started referring to the incognitum as a “mammoth,” after the woolly mammoths then being dug out of the ice in Siberia. It fact, it would turn out that North America had been home primarily to two different types of pachyderm—mammoths, like the ones at the dig in South Dakota, and mastodons, like the ones in the Hudson River Valley. Hardly anybody knew the difference. Single Page Previous Page 1 of 5 Next 1 2 3 4 5 Like this article? Rare Mastodon Skull Complete With Tusks Found By Bachelor Partiers A A A rare fossil of a mastodon skull, complete with its tusks, was found in a New Mexico state park by a group of men attending a bachelor party. Randall Gann of the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science said the partygoers discovered the fossil earlier this week in sand at a lakeshore in Elephant Butte State Park, an area of arid hills surrounding a reservoir about 155 miles south of Albuquerque.

He said the museum's head paleontologist was amazed by the find, calling it "the most complete mastodon skull with attached tusks he has seen in 20 years." Urgent: Do You Approve Or Disapprove of President Obama's Job Performance? Vote Now in Urgent Poll Mastodons were Ice Age relatives of the elephant that stood 10 feet tall and migrated to North America some 15 million years ago. They ranged across the continent with saber tooth tigers, giant sloths and American camels, before becoming extinct about 10,000 years ago. The revelers who made the discovery first contacted a professor at the University of New Mexico, who then put them in touch with the museum's head paleontologist Gary Morgan, according to Reuters. Gann said scientists from the museum planned to act quickly. "Because it is in sand and not buried in rock, Dr.

Morgan feels he can excavate the skull, cast it, and remove it today," the spokesman said.Shannon Parill, an employee of Elephant Butte State Park, said it was surprising the fossil was found in such a popular area, which attracts thousands of outdoor enthusiasts every year with its boating, hiking, fishing and camping opportunities. Beth Wojahn, spokeswoman for New Mexico's Energy, Minerals and Natural Resources Department, praised the group involved. "What is noteworthy is the men who found the skull did not disturb it and called the right people," Wojahn said. Mastodon | Dinosaur Home [edit] Description Life restoration of M. americanum While mastodons had a size and appearance similar to elephants and mammoths, they were not particularly closely related.

Their teeth differ dramatically from those of members of the elephant family; they had blunt, conical, nipple-like projections on the crowns of their molars,[4] which were more suited to chewing leaves than the high-crowned teeth mammoths used for grazing; the name mastodon (or mastodont) means "nipple teeth" and is also an obsolete name for their genus.[5] Their skulls are larger and flatter than those of mammoths, while their skeleton is stockier and more robust.[6] [edit] Taxonomy and evolution Mammut is a genus of the extinct family Mammutidae, related to the proboscidean family Elephantidae (mammoths and elephants). The common name "Mastodon" derives from a genus named to describe various extinct members of proboscideans, Mastodon (Cuvier) is not currently used. The assignment of the taxon to Mammut, a name that preceded Cuvier's description, met with resistance and authors sometimes applied "Mastodon" as an informal name. Right maxilla with second and third molars of M.

americanum on display at the State Museum of Pennsylvania The ancestors of Mammut diverged from the Elephantidae clade approximately 26.8 million years ago.[7] In 2007 the complete mitochondrial genome of M. americanum was published using an Alaskan fossil tooth dated between 50,000 and 130,000 years old.[8] Working from the previously established date of divergence and utilizing this new sequence as an outgroup to the Elephantidae line, the researchers inferred that the ancestors of the African elephant (Loxodonta sp.) diverged from the line that led to Asian elephants (Elephas maximus) and mammoths approximately 7.6 million years ago, and that the Asian elephant and mammoth lines diverged approximately 6.7 million years ago. This further confirmed another study which, utilizing a fully sequenced wooly mammoth mitochondrial genome showed that the wooly mammoth was more closely related to Asian elephants than African elephants.[9] Furthermore, it demonstrated that M.

americanum could be used as an effective outgroup to the Elephantidae clade, representing a preferable alternative to the dugong (Dugong dugon) and hyrax (order Hyracoidea), which had been used previously due to their being the closest living relatives of elephants. The oldest Mammut fossil (Mammut sp.) was unearthed in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The genus gives its name to the family Mammutidae, assigned to the order Proboscidea. They superficially resemble members of the proboscidean family Elephantidae, including mammoths; however, mastodons were browsers, while mammoths were grazers. Confusingly, several genera of proboscids from the gomphothere family have similar-sounding names (e.g., Stegomastodon), but are actually more closely related to elephants than to mastodons. [edit] Species The American mastodon (Mammut americanum), the most recent member of the genus, lived from about 3.7 million years ago until it became extinct about 10,000 years BCE.

It is known from fossils found ranging from present-day Alaska and New England in the north, to Florida, southern California, and as far south as Honduras.[10] The American mastodon resembled a woolly mammoth in appearance, with a thick coat of shaggy hair.[11] It had tusks that sometimes exceeded five meters in length; they curved upwards, but less dramatically than those of the woolly mammoth.[6] Its main habitat was cold spruce woodlands, and it is believed to have browsed in herds.[12] They are generally reported as having disappeared from North America about 12,700 years ago,[13] as part of a mass extinction of most of the Pleistocene megafauna, widely presumed to have been as a result of rapid climate change in North America, as well as the sophistication of stone tool weaponry used by the Clovis hunters.[13] The latest Paleo-Indians entered the American continent and expanded to relatively large numbers 13,000 years ago,[14] and their hunting may have caused a gradual attrition of the mastodon population.[15][16] M.

cosoensis: Originally described from a fossil molar as Pliomastodon cosoensis by Schultz (1937). It was found in the late Pliocene (Blancan) Coso Formation of California. Later recombined as Mammut cosoensis by Shoshani and Tassy (1996).[17][18][19] M. furlongi: Described by Shotwell and Russell (1963). Its remains where found in the late Miocene (Clarendonian) Jontura Formation of Oregon.[20][21] There's uncertainty in the validity of the species as Lambert and Shoshani (1998) did not recognize it.[22] Restoration by Charles R. Knight M. raki: Endemic to North America from the Pliocene, living from 4.9–1.8 mya, existing for about 3.1 million years.[23] The evidence for this species was first discovered in New Mexico, "from beds bearing teeth of Pleistocene Equus and elsewhere". The name was once regarded as a subjective synonym of Mammut americanum, before being tentatively placed under this name.

The latter species, the American Mastodon, is recorded at only four beds, dated to the later Pleistocene, in New Mexico.[24] Other Mammut are rarely found from the Blancan period, and only in fossil beds of northern regions, Mammut raki is the earliest example of the genus to have been discovered in the region.[25] The species was first described by Childs Frick in 1933 as Mastodon raki, assigning it to the genus Mastodon (Cuvier). The type locality was originally indicated as "Hot Springs, New Mexico". The specific epithet commemorates the collector Joseph Rak, who provided the specimen to the American Museum of Natural History.

This mandible is retained in the museum's (AMNH) collection as F:AM2335, the prefix designating it as part of Frick's collection.[25] The name was recombined as Mammut raki by Tedford in 1981, the generic epithet Mammut having priority over Cuvier's later description.[26] In 1999 the authors Lucas and Morgan discerned the type to have been obtained by Rak at a site seven miles north of Hot Springs, later named Truth or Consequences, to the west of Elephant Butte Reservoir in the Palomos Formation. Lucas and Morgan redescribed the specimen F:AM2335, provided photographs and an illustration, and attributed a provenance to this holotype. The distinguishing characteristics of the teeth present in mandible was found to be similar to the description of Pliomastodon and supported its current arrangement as an early species of Mammut.[25] The mammalian fauna found alongside Mammut raki include Equus simplicidens and Gigantocamelus.

The age of the holotype was inferred from the morphology of the mandible and teeth, and by the biochronology of the nearby mammalian assemblage.[25] [edit] Discovery Exhuming the First American Mastodon by Peale Fossils have been found in Africa and North America. In 1900, archaeologist Dr. James K. Hampson documented the discovery of skeletal remains of a mastodon on Island No. 35 of the Mississippi River, Tipton County, Tennessee. The site of the prehistoric find is approximately 3 mi (4,8 km) east of Reverie, Tennessee and 23 mi (37 km) south of Blytheville, Arkansas.[27] During heavy rain in June 1900, sand at the point bar of Island No. 35 had been washed away, exposing the mastodon skeleton in the sediment when the water retreated from the sandbar in July of the same year. John Pendleton, a resident of Island No. 35, notified his neighbor Dr. James K. Hampson about unusual bones he had found exposed by the retreating water at the head of the river island.

Reportedly, Hampson visited the site of the find "2 or 3 weeks" after the prehistoric bones had been discovered. By the time of Hampson's arrival, many of the bones had been stolen and the skeleton had been considerably damaged by "curiosity seekers" and "ivory hunters". The remainder of the skeleton ("mainly parts of the hind leg and pelvis") were excavated by Hampson with the help of a pick to separate the mastodon bones from the gravel and pebbles in which they had been resting "cemented together by a clay".[27] Although this find was initially believed to be the remains of a single animal, Morse and Morse[28] subsequently reported that the site consisted of at least two separate mastodons. Several human artifacts were recovered in possible association with the skeletal remains.[27] However, these materials lack direct provenance, and it is generally believed that the artifacts and skeletal remains do not represent Paleoindian/Paleoelephant interaction.[28][29] In 1957 the site was reported as destroyed.[27] The remaining mastodon bones are on display in the Hampson Museum State Park.

The Tipton County Museum in Covington also exhibits some fossilized mastodon bones. Credits go to .org/Mastodon P.S.If I did afend wikipedia please report it to ME and only ME.Thank you.End of .P.S. Mastodons - definition of Mastodons by The Free Dictionary Mastodons - definition of Mastodons by The Free Dictionary (măs′tə-dŏn′) also mas·to·dont (-dŏnt′) n. Any of several very large, extinct proboscidian mammals of the family Mammutidae of the Miocene, Pliocene, and Pleistocene Epochs, resembling elephants but having molar teeth of a different structure. [New Latin Mastodōn, genus name : Greek mastos, breast, nipple + Greek odōn, tooth (from the nipple-shaped protrusions on the crowns of its molars); see dent- in the Appendix of Indo-European roots.] mas′to·don′ic adj. mastodon mastodont n 1. (Palaeontology) any extinct elephant-like proboscidean mammal of the genus Mammut (or Mastodon), common in Pliocene times 2.

(Animals) any extinct elephant-like proboscidean mammal of the genus Mammut (or Mastodon), common in Pliocene times [C19: from New Latin, literally: breast-tooth, referring to the nipple-shaped projections on the teeth] ˌmastoˈdontic adj (ˈmæs təˌdɒn) n. any of numerous extinct elephantlike mammals of the Oligocene through Pleistocene epochs, esp. of the genus Mastodon (formerly Mammut), distinguished from true elephants by their tooth structure. Compare mammoth (def. 1). [1805–15; < New Latin < Greek mast(ós) breast + -odṓn -toothed] mas·to·don (măs′tə-dŏn′) Any of several extinct mammals similar to elephants and mammoths except in the shape of their molar teeth. Like elephants, mastodons had a pair of long, curved tusks growing from their upper jaw, but they also sometimes had a second pair from the lower jaw. They lived from the Oligocene Epoch to the end of the Ice Age.

ThesaurusAntonymsRelated WordsSynonymsLegend: Noun 1. mastodon - extinct elephant-like mammal that flourished worldwide from Miocene through Pleistocene times; differ from mammoths in the form of the molar teeth genus Mammut , genus Mastodon , Mammut - extinct type genus of the Mammutidae: mastodons American mastodon , American mastodont , Mammut americanum - mastodon of North America; in some classifications considered a mammoth rather than a mastodon Translations Want to thank TFD for its existence? Tell a friend about us , add a link to this page, or visit the webmaster's page for free fun content . Link to this page: proboscidean References in classic literature ? For in the mere act of penning my thoughts of this Leviathan, they weary me, and make me faint with their out-reaching comprehensiveness of sweep, as if to include the whole circle of the sciences, and all the generations of whales, and men, and mastodons, past, present, and to come, with all the revolving panoramas of empire on earth, and throughout the whole universe, not excluding its suburbs.

View in context As though trained for years in this particular evolution, the green Martians melted like mist into the spacious doorways of the nearby buildings, until, in less than three minutes, the entire cavalcade of chariots, mastodons and mounted warriors was nowhere to be seen. View in context Amongst us a simpleton, possessed by the demon of hate or cupidity, who has an enemy to destroy, or some near relation to dispose of, goes straight to the grocer's or druggist's, gives a false name, which leads more easily to his detection than his real one, and under the pretext that the rats prevent him from sleeping, purchases five or six grammes of arsenic -- if he is really a cunning fellow, he goes to five or six different druggists or grocers, and thereby becomes only five or six times more easily traced; -- then, when he has acquired his specific, he administers duly to his enemy, or near kinsman, a dose of arsenic which would make a mammoth or mastodon burst, and which, without rhyme or reason, makes his victim utter groans which alarm the entire neighborhood.

View in context I found myself gazing at any straggling scion of this strange race with a riveted fascination, just as one would stare at a living mastodon, or a megatherium that had moved in the grey dawn of creation and seen the wonders of that mysterious world that was before the flood. View in context If you don't think it's lonesome wandering all by yourself through savage, unknown Pellucidar, why, just try it, and you will not wonder that I was glad of the company of this first dog--this living replica of the fierce and now extinct hyaenodon of the outer crust that hunted in savage packs the great elk across the snows of southern France, in the days when the mastodon roamed at will over the broad continent of which the British Isles were then a part, and perchance left his footprints and his bones in the sands of Atlantis as well.

Mammoths and Mastodons of the Ohio Valley Were Homebodies Mammoths and Mastodons of the Ohio Valley Were Homebodies By Laura Geggel, Staff Writer | July 28, 2014 01:55pm ET MORE Researcher Brooke Crowley at the University of Cincinnati shows the jawbone of a mammoth. Credit: Dottie Stover, University of Cincinnati People may imagine mammoths and mastodons as enormous beasts that roamed the vast North American continent more than 10,000 years ago. But the mammoths and mastodons of present-day southwestern Ohio and northwestern Kentucky were homebodies that tended to stay in one area, a new study finds. The enamel on the animals' molars gave researchers clues as to where the mammoths and mastodons lived throughout their lives and what they ate. They discovered that mammoths ate grasses and sedges, whereas mastodons preferred leaves from trees or shrubs. Mammoths favored areas near retreating ice sheets, where grasses were plentiful, and mastodons fed near forested spaces, the researchers said.

"I suspect that this was a pretty nice place to live, relatively speaking," lead researcher Brooke Crowley, an assistant professor of geology and anthropology at the University of Cincinnati, said in a statement . "Our data suggest that animals probably had what they needed to survive here year-round." [ Image Gallery: Stunning Mammoth Unearthed ] Both animals, now extinct, likely came to North America across the Bering Strait land bridge that connected Alaska to Russia when sea levels were lower than they are today, Crowley told Live Science in an email. Mammoths — which had teeth ideal for grinding grasses, as well as curved tusks and humped heads — are more closely related to elephants than mastodons are, Crowley said. Mammoths came to North America during the mid-Pleistocene Epoch , about 1 million years ago, she added. Mastodons arrived much earlier. They had spread across America by the Pliocene Epoch, around 5 million years ago. Their molars were shaped to crush plants, such as leaves and woody stems, and they had long, straight tusks that could grow up to 16 feet (4.9 meters) long, Crowley said.

In the study, the researchers looked at the remnants of carbon, oxygen and strontium, a naturally occurring metal, in the enamel of molars from eight mammoths and four mastodons that lived in Ohio and Kentucky about 20,000 years ago. The carbon analysis helped researchers learn about the animals' diet, whereas the traces of oxygen told them about the general climate at the time. Strontium provides insights into how much the animal traveled as their molars developed. Researchers can look at the type of strontium within the enamel and determine where it came from by comparing it to local samples of strontium in the environment. "Strontium reflects the bedrock geology of a location," Crowley said. This means that if a local animal has traces of strontium in its tooth, researchers can deduce where that type of strontium came from in the area. "If an animal grows its tooth in one place and then moves elsewhere, the strontium in its tooth is going to reflect where it came from, not where it died," she said.

Surprisingly, the researchers said, the strontium in the mammoth and mastodon teeth matched local water samples in 11 of the 12 mammals. Only one mastodon appeared to have traveled from another area before settling in the Ohio Valley. The findings, however, only apply to the animals that lived in that region. "A mammoth in Florida did not behave the same as one in New York, Wyoming, California, Mexico or Ohio," Crowley said. The study was published July 16 in the journal Boreas . 10 Million-Year-Old Mastodon Skull Found in New Mexico by Bachelor Party - NBC News Jun 13 2014, 8:03 pm ET 10 Million-Year-Old Mastodon Skull Found in New Mexico by Bachelor Party Share advertisement ALBUQUERQUE N.M. -- A fossil mastodon skull found by a group attending a bachelor party at a New Mexico lakeshore is more than 10 million years old and will take at least six months to clean, a museum paleontologist said on Friday.

The partygoers stumbled across the skull this week, complete with its tusks, buried in sand at Elephant Butte State Park, about 155 miles (250 km) south of Albuquerque. They first contacted a professor at the University of New Mexico, who then put them in touch with Gary Morgan, curator and head paleontologist at the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science. Morgan led a team that spent some six hours on Thursday carefully excavating the fossil, which was buried in about four feet (1.2 meters) of lake silt. Paleontologist Gary Morgan on Thursday stands over a the fossil of a stegomastodon skull discovered in a remote area of Elephant Butte State Park, N.M. Roberto Rosales / AP Sign up for top Science news delivered direct to your inbox When it emerged, it was found to measure approximately 5 feet by 3 feet (1.5 by 1 meters) and weighed more than 1,000 pounds (450 kg). "This mastodon find is older than the woolly mammoth that tread the Earth in the Ice Age. ... It probably died on a sandbar of the ancient Rio Grande River," Morgan told Reuters.

"I've been here for 20 years and have never seen something like this before." Mastodons were relatives of the elephant that stood 10 feet (3 meters) tall and migrated to North America some 15 million years ago. They ranged across the continent with saber tooth tigers, giant sloths and American camels before becoming extinct about 10,000 years ago. Morgan said the unusual discovery came to light after some water was drained from the Elephant Butte Lake two weeks ago to provide irrigation for parts of southern New Mexico and Texas. He said the meticulous process of cleaning the fossil would now likely take his team some six months before they could then begin examining it more closely. The museum will put the fossil on public display, he said, but probably not for a year while those studies take place."This is too important to keep stored in the back," he said.

Question: The mastodon, which was similar to the mammoth, was found on which continent?
Answer: NORTH AMERICA